


Conversation: Bumblebee and Ironhide

by dragonofdispair



Series: Roads [9]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-01
Updated: 2008-05-01
Packaged: 2018-02-26 18:40:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2662346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonofdispair/pseuds/dragonofdispair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ironhide and Bumblebee discuss Decepticons, drones, assassinations, programming and pasts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conversation: Bumblebee and Ironhide

Bumblebee lay flat on his back and looked up at the sky. Sam and Mikaela were...probably still at the movie theater. They'd only been there for about half an hour, and were planning on a dinner or something after. They'd told Bumblebee to go do something that had nothing to do with them. They didn't want any eavesdroppers while they were on their date, though how a date was more private than making out on his hood escaped his logic entirely. But he accepted it with the same "if I can't understand it I can still accept it" attitude that had made him a good diplomat. 

So he'd left them and was now staring up at the sky in his mech form, indulging in the peace that allowed him to lay here, in full view under the sky, with only minimal proximity scans to tell him if another approached, and not have to worry about being attacked. He was...dozing, he supposed. A human might have assumed he was trying to find shapes in the clouds. He was probably a lateral enough thinker to do that if he wanted -- it wouldn't make his logic circuits crash or anything -- but abstraction had never been his thing. No, Bumblebee was sifting through all the radio clutter, sorting out what was music, television, cell phones, internet, military, weather, random emissions from the sun, etc. There were several that just transmitted the time according to some universal marker -- idly he translated one of the signals into a cybertronian format, then encrypted it, several times and into several different security clearances. It was pleasantly pointless.

It almost drowned out Ironhide's ranting at him on a private subspace channel.

"...and he won't listen to me when I say it isn't slagging safe. I suppose I could understand him wanting to redeem the little slagger, but there ain't nothing that says this isn't a trick..."

Whatever, was Bumblebee's somewhat lazy thought as he took a few minutes to translated the last fifteen minutes of a Spanish soap opera into Japanese. Then translated both the Spanish and the Japanese versions into English and almost giggled at how different they suddenly were. 

Ironhide wasn't saying anything he hadn't said before, nothing that Bumblebee hadn't thought of himself. Primus! Of all of them he'd been the one that had had to watch out the most for the scorpion in battle. And he had enough experience with drones in general -- he very emphatically did not want to think about experience with Scorponok in specific -- to believe that they couldn't turn. But Prime'd said that Scorponok was welcome among them. He said he was giving Decepticon drone a chance. He wasn't going to contradict Prime, not without proof. 

Like understanding, Bumblebee didn't need to agree with it to accept it. For now.

He was trying to figure out how to encrypt a Russian news program using mid level security encryption without putting it into a cybertronian format first, when Ironhide asked a question that had never come up in his rants before.

"...cannons itch just watching him sometimes. How can you stand it?"

He'd accepted that Prime wasn't going to change his processor on this so there was no real point to his protesting, but he didn't think saying that was what Ironhide wanted to hear. Not that Bumblebee thought anything he could say was what Ironhide wanted to hear.

"Not sure," Bumblebee sent back. He thought about it. He didn't trust the Decepticon drone anymore than Ironhide, probably less, but definitely didn't feel the need to be as violent about it. "Probably in part because I rewrote the anti-Deception re-enforcemet part of my programming before you were sparked."

Silence across the line, then, "You WHAT?"

Bumblebee snickered a bit. Somehow that was exactly how he thought Ironhide'd react. If Jazz were still alive, he'd owe him a cube of high grade. "Don't over torque your struts -- most special ops 'bots rewrite that at least a little bit."

More silence. Bumblebee used the moment to analyze a cell phone encryption. It was simple, but then they didn't have the likes of Soundwave continuously hacking into their communications. Primus, even if the 'Con comm officer did come here, he probably wouldn't bother going through their leisure communications -- and if he did, the Autobots certainly wouldn't need to worry about him showing up in battle. Earth had so many cell phones, it'd probably lock up even a comm specialist's circuits to try and tap them all, and that was without even considering television, music, and internet.

"Why the slag would you do that?"

Bumblebee snickered as he sent an answer in English with a low mournful song, _"So I'll just sit here with my secret, thinking no one else can see, and I'll just keep it between the Devil and me."_

Ironhide transmitted a burst of data along the channel that didn't really have any words in it. Exasperation probably. Bumblebee would bet good currency of almost any type that the warrior-built was growling. Oh well, Bumblebee had been putting up with Ironhide's ranting for  -- he checked the time signal he had encrypted earlier -- an hour since he'd dropped off Sam and Mikaela. It was his turn to suffer. And scanning through music stations was so easy.

_"I pray no one sees. I keep my family in the dark -- 'cause Lord knows it would break their hearts."_

"You," yep that definitely was a growl, "are almost as much an irritating little bug as that Pit-bound Decepticon."

Considering the way Bumblebee had watched Scorponok rile up the weapons specialist... "That sounds like a compliment."

And that was almost an admission of rewriting his anti-Decepticon re-enforcement in and of itself -- taking a comparison between himself and a Decepticon favorably. Most Autobots would have denied it fervently, whatever the comparison actually was. Warrior-builts, and warrior-chosen, rarely touched that part of their programming, and if they did, usually they did so because they were considering changing sides. Admitting to tampering with that programming would usually slag off a warrior good. To them it was an admission of wavering loyalties, or treason.

It was a measure of how much Ironhide trusted Bumblebee that he wasn't accusing the smaller 'bot of treason, and threatening all sorts of mayhem on his person both before and after turning him over to Prime for a trial. Not that Prime would do anything about it -- there wasn't any sort of rule that said even a warrior-built couldn't tamper with any part of their own programing. Legally it wasn't considered proof of anything. And Prime knew perfectly well that every infiltrator had tampered with that part of their programming, if not the exact ways in which they had.

He lazily translated a somewhat incomprehensible heavy metal song into a hexadecimal code, then that into C scale musical tones, and decided that that was much more pleasant to listen to, while Ironhide sputtered.

Finally he gathered his wits enough to talk sensibly again. "If you really wanted to keep it a secret, you woulda told me to frag off not...so why'd you tamper with that? It's -- "

"What? Part of makes us all Autobots?" A warrior-built attitude. Bumblebee snickered. "Hardly. Prime and Ratchet never even had any, and Jazz probably completely erased his ... he almost would have had to to pull of some off the stuff he did."

"So...?"

"That part of our codes makes it hard to do anything but fight a 'Con, right? How does that help a 'bot coax classified information out of a seeker over a cube or twelve of high grade during a party celebrating a recent 'Con victory?"

Ironhide thought that over. He really was a smart 'bot, just not always very flexible in his thinking. He usually didn't have to be. Bumblebee translated a Brazilian sports program from Portuguese into English, then back and compared the two. A quick scan through the television channels revealed that the same game was being broadcast in Spanish and English. Then, intrigued, he streamed the sport -- football/soccer --  on all three channels until he had a good grasp of the rules, players, other people involved and how speakers of the three different languages viewed the game differently.

"And this makes it so you can trust Scorponok?"

Silly robot -- he put too much weight onto base programming. "No. It just makes it easier not to shoot him. I don't trust Scorponok. I saw enough of how drones behaved back on Cybertron -- they can't be turned. But Prime isn't going to change his processor, and complaining is just going to get me sent on long cross-country trips so he doesn't have to listen to me."

Was that another growl? Probably. Ironhide had not thought his trip to Washington D.C. was very fun at all. And was not liking his assignment to drive Will all over attending anthropologists' lectures. At least he had Will. If Bumblebee had been assigned those jobs, Sam wouldn't have been able to come with him because of school and his family -- or Mikaela, for the same reasons.

Bumblebee checked the time again. An hour and a half since he'd dropped off Sam and Mikaela. The movie should be over soon, if it wasn't already. He hacked into a cell phone signal and sent Sam a text message -- U want a ride 2 dinner? 

"What did you mean you saw how drones behaved? They're just nasty little 'Con critters."

At least he wasn't ranting anymore, but Bumblebee didn't really want to think about Cybertron during this kinda lazy day. He'd onlined during the war, so in his memories, their home planet didn't have anything except the war really.

"Primus, are you always this dense? I'm a spy -- a good one. Sure after..." He felt a spike of grief. His first unit had been killed in a Decepticon ambush not long after the Allspark had been lost. None of them had been gestalt-bonded, but they'd brothers anyway. "When the _Ark_ took off, infiltrating 'Con ships was a bit hit and miss and Jazz was better at that, so I was a planetary scout and xeno-communications 'bot more often, but before that I spent a fair amount of time in 'Con bases. And an infiltrator that doesn't keep track of the drones, doesn't live very long."

"Never knew that," was Ironhide's somewhat thoughtful response, and Bumblebee felt a little bad for snapping at him. He sent a sort of untranslatable apology. There wasn't really any reason he should know about the specifics of an infiltrator's job -- except that he'd been fairly good friends with Jazz for longer than Bumblebee had known either of them. It meant he knew a bit more about an infiltrator's lifestyle than the average warrior. Spies knew how to be warriors, but warriors generally didn't know about how to be spies. When he'd been assigned to the Ark, Bumblebee had thought that such a deep friendship between a warrior and a saboteur more than a bit unusual.

But there were things Bumblebee hadn't ever told Ironhide, and obviously Jazz hadn't been as open with the warrior-built as Bumblebee thought he had been. Usually Ironhide was just so accepting of the two of them, Bumblebee had thought he knew what an infiltrator's life was like.

"So what else don't I know, Bumblebee?" No acknowledgment that Bumblebee had said something wrong. No acknowledgment of the apology. Ironhide's way of saying he was forgiven.

And there were lots of ways that question could have been interpreted. A minute ago, Bumblebee might have used that to tease him, but Ironhide wasn't being annoying anymore. And the yellow 'bot still felt a bit bad for snapping at him. "Probably lots. I don't know what Jazz did and didn't tell you."

"An you never told me much. Jazz told me not ta ask. I figured you just didn't want to talk about it."

"I didn't." How honest did he want to be with Ironhide right now? They'd become brothers during the _Ark_ 's journey, but... "You wouldn't have been the first warrior-built to try and take apart an infiltrator upon finding out some of the things we have to do." ...there was a reason there weren't many special ops - warrior friendships.

Or at least there hadn't been when they were all still on Cybertron. Who knows what had happened in the fleets and individual ships while searching for the Allspark.

Another comm channel beeped and Bumblebee accessed it. Sam had texted him back -- N. we R fine. ttyl -- and he did a quick search for "ttyl" over the internet and came up with "talk to you later". No way to bail on this conversation before it turned really painful -- 'cause now Ironhide was going to ask him about trust, and why Bumblebee didn't trust him and he'd thought they were brother --

"That happen to you before?" Or not. Ironhide was being unusually perceptive today slaggitall.

Honesty, he reminded himself even as another spike of grief shot through him this time accompanied by betrayal and old pain, you'd decided to be honest with him.

"Yeah. I'm lucky I had a good unit," good brothers, "and they made sure I got to a good medic. Told myself I wouldn't tell that type of stuff ever again -- warriors just don't understand, but --" He trusted Ironhide, else he wouldn't have mentioned rewriting his programming. But some things just still hurt.

"Suppose that's why you were so skittish 'round me at first." 

"Yeah." Skittish wasn't nearly a strong enough word, but it was accurate. Ironhide had been one of his nightmares come to life at the time. Bumblebee hadn't been able to figure out how Jazz, a 'bot smaller than he was, had been able to be friends with the huge black mech. Eventually he'd figured out that there wasn't anything to fear -- mostly because to a special ops 'bot "skittish around someone" often meant "spying on him from the maintenance crawl ways" and he'd been able to watch the easy friendship between him and the silver 'bot. Bumblebee didn't delude himself into thinking Jazz hadn't noticed him -- especially after Jazz'd come to him and told him that watching was fine if it made Bumblebee more comfortable, but he'd have to talk to Ironhide eventually. "Y-you look a bit like him."

Silence and Bumblebee thought he might of offended his friend. "Not much. It's not like you're the same model or anything -- just your color, and you're big."

"I wouldn't hurt you."

"I know that now." The words 'but then...' went unsaid. 

The silent words were treated with Ironhide's usual sensitivity -- that is to say they were ignored completely. "Knew you were a good infiltrator...did you ever go inta a 'Con hidey hole to kill someone, or were you always just intel?"

What the... where did...why..."Why do you want to know that?"

"I got some things I always wanted to ask one of you special ops types. Jazz wouldn't ever answer me -- said one of the reasons he'd started hanging out with me was that he didn't have ta think about that stuff. Said ta find someone else if I was curious, but none of you would ever talk to me. Makes sense why now, with what you said about warriors getting violent with the spies. Thought about asking you when you got assigned to us, but then Jazz told me not ta ask you. And you were so fragging skittish, I just dropped it."

Bumblebee did not want to think about this. Didn't really want to answer Ironhide's questions. But it'd never even occurred to him that Ironhide might be interested in the war of secrets and secret deaths that happened in the shadows around battles. He'd never asked -- out of courtesy for his friends. Bumblebee felt that that courtesy deserved an answer now. "Yeah -- I killed a few 'Cons while recharging. Not many. I was much better at information retrieval and computer interfaces. And it's hard for a single mech to accomplish multiple things without being caught. You can't predict when someone will detect your activities and it's really hard to escape once the alarms go off."

"So what'd we get from assassinations? Seems ta me there was always a 'Con ta take his commander's place and it didn't even hurt their moral much the way it did when they killed one of ours."

"Sure, commanders got replaced quickly, but only after a power struggle that cost them resources and lives. And usually a commander's pet projects would be abandoned without his backing, which was sometimes a lot more reliable than sabotaging the project -- you can't ever be sure you destroyed all the backups -- and even if they didn't abandon projects, it bought us time to thoroughly sabotage them. And actually we didn't assassinate base commanders as often as we did team leaders. Depending on the team, that had the potential to take apart the entire team."

"How so?"

"Teams didn't accept replacement members. Team leaders were usually the only member of the team able to lead the team, and without the leader..."

"Teams were easier to pick off in battle." Trust the warrior pick up on that point first. Other possible consequences had been the team completely falling apart due to disagreements the leader had mediated before, or even killing each other as they all tried to take over. Few Decepticon teams had survived the deaths of their leaders for long. 

"At the very least. The 'Cons figured the same about us. Wasn't as true -- teams like the Wreckers didn't have a problem accepting replacements and promoting leaders  if they lost someone -- but our gestalts were paranoid. But so were theirs for that matter."

"Didn't think of that. But I was never part of a team on Cybertron."

Bumblebee winced. He knew Ironhide didn't intend to to be stirring up memories the way he was. There was no way for the warrior to know about Bumblebee's team. That was one of the things he'd never talked about to Ironhide -- and this not even to Jazz. But that didn't stop the memories from hurting. 

"Bumblebee?"

"I'm still here."

"What'd I say this time?"

Honest. Honest. Either be honest or tell him to frag off. But he didn't really want to tell Ironhide to frag off right now, despite how this line of thought had ruined a nice day. "That you were never part of a team. But I was, before I was transfered to Prime's base. A 'Con ambush -- which was so stupid, because we were all infiltration and scouting experts, but that time the Decepticons were better."

Ironhide made a sound of acknowledgment. But not apology. Cybertronian didn't have an equivalent to English's non-specific 'sorry' because it wasn't expected that anyone would have to apologize for something that wasn't his direct fault. Some sounds that weren't words -- like Bumblebee's earlier apology to Ironhide -- could be used like that, but it wasn't in Ironhide's nature to make them.

For a long moment there was silence while Bumblebee fought his way through the storm of old emotions and old memories. Ironhide simply waited for him to be ready to talk again, ignoring him as thoroughly as he would if they were face to face and Bumblebee had retreated to alt form.

"Do you want to know the worst part, Ironhide?" The black mech just transmitted a click like the one made when one of his cannons snapped into place, which was a neutral sound that could be taken either as encouragement or apathy. So Bumblebee continued, "The worst part is that the ambush was carried out by the Insecticons. I didn't see Firefly get taken down, but Scorponok's attack pattern is pretty distinctive and we know he was attached to one of them at the time."

"Now I'm really surprised you haven't shot the fragger yet. Or at least yelled at Prime. Changed programming or no changed programming, it can't be easy for you."

"I trust Prime's judgement," he said simply, then, because that didn't seem like it would be enough for Ironhide, added, "And since I live full time with Sam, I don't have do deal with him as often as you and Ratchet do."

"I'm sensing another 'and'."

Primus-fragging-damnit! Why did Ironhide have to choose _today_ to be perceptive. Not that it had prompted something painful this time, but he still didn't want to say it.

But he would anyway. "Drones cannot be turned. They aren't given the ability to change their own programming the way we are, but... if somehow Scorponok did somehow defeat his programming, I also saw enough of how drones were treated that I can't blame him for not wanting to go back to that. I'll kill him if he becomes a danger to us, but I won't be the reason Prime turns him out."

 

 

fini


End file.
